Observations

April 02, 2014

But it was the line photos that we found arresting. And it's clear McGuinness was advancing a White House line. Press secretary Jay Carney opened his daily briefing yesterday with the following gasconade: "As you can see by the lines around the country this weekend, we are seeing a surge in enrollment."

The first thing we thought of when we saw the pictures was the photos we've recently seen on Twitter of Venezuelans waiting in bread lines. Waiting in line to purchase necessities is a characteristic not of a prosperous free society but of command economies under repressive regimes. Closer to home, one doubts even the Transportation Security Administration would be so tone-deaf as to advertise long airport lines as an indication it's doing a great job.

So what in the world could the White House have been thinking? Here's a guess: They look at the ObamaCare lines and think not of communist subjects queuing up for bread or toilet paper, or Americans for driver's licenses, but something more like the lines of consumers eager to be the first to get the new iPhone or the latest Harry Potter book. Affluent people often wait in line for things about which they have a particular enthusiasm--or for special experiences, like an amusement park ride, concert or meal at a favorite restaurant.

One obvious difference is that whereas the iPhone and Harry Potter queuers are eager to get the new thing first, the ObamaCare ones are presumably anxious not to miss the deadline (even if it's not rigorously enforced). ObamaCare lines might have been impressive if they'd begun to form in the last days of September. At the end of open enrollment, the White House boast is akin to the IRS's citing a "surge" in filing of tax returns two weeks from now as evidence that the income tax system is popular and well designed.

December 23, 2013

Pajama Boy is the bookend to vero possumus, the faux-Greek columns, the Obama rainbow logo, cooling the planet and lowering the seas, hope and change, Forward!, “Yes, we can!”, the Nate Silver infatuation, Barbara Walters’ “messiah,” David Brooks’ crease, Chris Matthews’ tingle, and the army of Silicon techies who can mobilize for Obama but not for Obamacare. These are the elites without identities who feed on the latest fad. They are the upper-crust versions of those who once mobbed stores to buy the last Cabbage Patch Kids doll, or had to have a pet rock on their dresser. Obama, after all, was the lava lamp and Chia Pet of the young urban progressive.

If I were to focus on just two of the many characteristics of Pajama Boy nation in the Age of Obama, one would be that the consequences of one’s ideology apply always to someone else. Obama obsesses on inequality, but cannot even go through the populist motions of avoiding Martha’s Vineyard, or not dressing like a nerd for golf at the latest tony course.

He is an arugula-eating man of the people who tries to bowl only during election season. Michelle rags on the 1%, but still hits Costa del Sol and Aspen. Obamacare for us; for congressional staffers and insiders something quite different. A Nobel Prize and a half a billion dollars for guru Al Gore; and dumping Current TV on a fossil-fuelled, anti-Semitic authoritarian Middle Eastern regime to fund more good work of our green Elmer Gantry. Amnesty for illegal aliens, but private academies for liberal kids far from the ensuing chaos of the public schools. Pajama Boys are fiercely liberal so that they can fiercely avoid the people they so champion and are so afraid to live among.

Second, the architects of Pajama Boy nation always expect others to go on despite rather than because of them. The frackers must frack so that Obama can brag about their productivity, while he bites his lip and looks pained to billionaire coastal benefactors about pumping liquid into the bowels of their Mother Earth.

On Friday, Barack Obama was back out to again brag about his three supposed accomplishments: One, the deficit is shrinking; two, the gas and oil picture is brightening; and three, we are not witnessing anymore shut-downs of government over the debt ceiling. He should have added — “We do best when no one listens to me.”

Savings accrued from the sequester that was forced upon Obama by those Tea Party nuts in the House. Gas prices are dropping despite the efforts of Obama to stop fracking and horizontal drilling on federal lands. Senator Obama himself voted to shut down the government under George W. Bush, rather than to raise the debt ceiling — having once passionately adopted the very stance that he now demonizes others for.

The cancellations come as a result of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which says that health insurance policies that fail to offer added benefits, such as prescription drug coverage and free preventive care, can’t be sold after this year even if they’re cheaper. With the online site expected to face difficulties through November, Americans may have only weeks to find replacement coverage, and many may end up paying higher premiums.

Something else that is getting lost in this initial shuffle is the employer-paid health plans. The Administration is trying to downplay the effect of Obamacare cancellation notices, by reminding us that around 80% of people are covered by employer plans, or Government programs, and thus not affected by the mandate. What they neglect to mention (and what I think will be the true tsunami of Obamacare) is when smaller to medium sized companies realize that it is cheaper to give their employees a stipend (like a car allowance, or cell phone allowance) to be used toward the employee buying their own coverage on the exchanges, than it is to pay for employer provided coverage.

If that happens before Obamacare gets a large pool of young, healthy kids to join up, then the death spiral is accelerated even more. If you think folks are pissed now, just wait.

September 06, 2013

From the Times this morning, we see that the President is still floundering, unwilling or unable to level with himself or the public about just how ugly his self-created Syria predicament has become:

“I didn’t set a red line; the world set a red line,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference in Stockholm on the first day of a three-day visit to Sweden and Russia, where he will take part in a summit meeting that is likely to be dominated by the war in Syria.

“My credibility’s not on the line,” he said, appealing to lawmakers and foreign leaders to back his plan to retaliate against President Bashar al-Assad. “The international community’s credibility is on the line. And America and Congress’s credibility is on the line.”

President Obama could not be more wrong. It is precisely the President’s credibility as a spokesman for the “international community” (whatever that is) and for US foreign policy that is glaringly and horribly on the line. An effective leader would have consulted with key people in Congress and made sure of his backing before making explicit threats of force. Now the President is twisting lonesomely in the wind, and the question is whether Congress will ride to the rescue. If it doesn’t, it will be the closest thing the American system has to a parliamentary vote of “no confidence”, where Congress explicitly declares to the world that the President of the United States does not speak for the country.

That would be very dangerous. Foreigners will no longer know when and whether to take anything this President says as representing American policy rather than his own editorial opinions. We hate to say it, but that is so dangerous that there’s a strong argument for Congress to back the Syria resolution simply to avoid trashing the credibility of the only President we’ve got.

If Congress declines to support what even proponents of a Syria strike must agree is a massively screwed up policy, then the President will face another choice. He can do a “Clinton” (President Clinton bombed Serbia in the teeth of congressional disapproval), or he can fold like a cheap suit. If he chooses the latter course, Clint Eastwood’s “empty chair” stunt at the 2012 GOP convention will look eerily prophetic. For purposes of foreign policy, the United States will endure something like a presidential vacancy until Mr. Obama is replaced in 2017 or until he finds a way to restore his authority and prestige.

Considered in the abstract, the planned attacks on Syria may or may not be smart. But thanks to this latest round of “smart diplomacy,” if bombs don’t fall on Syria, President Obama will have bombed his own credibility into oblivion.

Mead raises a valid point (several, actually). Obama has to act, and has to be extremely effective in his show of force. Without a clear objective (which I still haven't seen), I can't see how he can save face here..

Obama being an "empty suit" has never been more apparent than of late.

August 24, 2013

On Wednesday, the Nevada AFL-CIO passed a resolution declaring that “the unintended consequences of the ACA will lead to the destruction of the 40-hour work week.” That’s quite an accomplishment for a “health” “care” “reform” law. But the poor old union heavies who so supported Obamacare are now reduced to bleating that they should be entitled to the same opt-outs secured by big business and congressional staffers. It’s a very strange law whose only defining characteristic is that no one who favors it wants to be bound by it.

Meanwhile, on the very same day as the AFL-CIO was predicting the death of the 40-hour week, the University of Virginia announced plans to boot working spouses off its health plan beginning January 1 because the Affordable Care Act has made it unaffordable: It’s projected to add $7.3 million dollars to the university’s bill in 2014 alone.

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But it also has a broader destabilizing effect: As I noted a couple of weeks ago, at the low end, about 40 percent of Americans now do minimal-skilled service jobs — the ones that, in the wake of Obamacare, are becoming neither full-time nor part-time but kinda-sorta two-thirds-time in order not to impose health-insurance obligations on the employer. In the middle, a similar number of Americans are diverted into those paper-shuffling jobs that do provide health benefits — say, in the “human resources” department of the bureaucracy; the kind of job in which you pass the time calling someone in Idaho to say you need them to fill in a W-9 before you can send them a 1099, or vice versa. And, at the top end, privileged Americans spend six-figure sums acquiring college degrees that admit them to an homogenized elite that tells itself Obamacare makes perfect sense for everyone except them.

August 12, 2013

Season 5 of Breaking Bad opened a few months back with a look one year into the future. We see Walter White, head full of hair (or perhaps a wig?) enjoying a free breakfast meal at Denny's, before going out to a car, and seeing a large rifle in the trunk. Last night's episode showed Future Walt going back to his home (now abandoned), and retrieving a capsule of ricin from its hiding place behind a switch cover.

Lost in the shuffle of the Hank-Walt fight , and then Walt issuing the "tread lightly" threat at the end of the episode, was the beginning of the episode, and the beginning of the season: Who is Walt coming back for?

Clearly, the family is gone from ABQ. House is empty, appears to have been that way fro some time, so it can't be them.

Perhaps it is Jesse? He sure is despondent in the last few episodes, last night showed him driving around the 'hood, tossing stacks of cash wherever they may land. My guess is that he winds up either ODing, or takes his own life before the show ends.

Saul? He is the only one that truly knows "all", that is still alive. Could he be a lose end that Walt is coming to tidy up?

Maybe it's Lydia, the gal from Madrigal. She worked out a Czech pipeline for Walt's meth (which we have learned last night has some quality issues). Maybe she is threatening to expose him, unless he comes out of retirement to "fix" the cook.

Could it be Todd? I'm assuming he is now the master "chef", now that Walt has quit the business. His lack of attention to detail (see quality issues above) has caused the quality of the cyrstal to drop significantly. Walt has always been especially proud of his "brand". Maybe he's coming to take back control of his empire?

July 13, 2013

I'm thinking he walks. After watching/reading some of the goings-on, I can't fathom how a jury doesn't walk away with some reasonable doubt. In my opinion, the whole case hinges on who threw the first punch.

If Zimmerman did, he was clearly the aggressor, and anything that happens after that punch is on him.

If Martin threw the first punch, than Zimmerman is well within his rights to defend himself.

We can argue all day on how the circumstances would have been different if Zimmerman hadn't gotten out of his vehicle. We can also argue about how the circumstances would have been different if Martin hadn't made the choice to confront Zimmerman.

Bottom line, regardless of the outcome from the trial, both men made poor decisions, and both men are stuck with life-altering repercussions-Martin lost his life, and Zimmerman, in a sense, lost his.

I'm guessing that in that split second before the fateful shot was fired, both men wished they had taken a different approach.

June 08, 2013

OBAMA: Now, having said all that, you'll remember when I made that speech a couple of weeks ago about the need for us to shift out of a perpetual war mind-set, I specifically said that one of the things that we're going to have to discuss and debate is how are we striking this balance between the need to keep the American people safe and our concerns about privacy because there are some tradeoffs involved.

I welcome this debate and I think it's healthy for our democracy. I think it's a sign of maturity because probably five years ago, six years ago we might not have been having this debate. And I think it's interesting that there are some folks on the left but also some folks on the right who are now worried about it, who weren't very worried about it when it was a Republican president.

I think that's good that we're having this discussion but I think it's important for everybody to understand, and I think the A merican people understand that there are some tradeoffs involved. You know?

The thing you need to remember, when you watch the video (at the link)? Obama was one of "those folks" on the Left who were very worried when it was a Republican President. Why not explain to us how you have evolved, and why something you once so vocally opposed is now not a big deal?

Also, take note of his body language/facial expressions-is it me, or does he seem happy with himself as he lectures about this?

June 05, 2013

There's been some pretty fierce back and forth in the preceding week over the question of "rate shock": the hefty increase in insurance premiums that people--particularly young and healthy people--can expect to pay for health insurance come 2014. I don't really want to recap here, so if you want to follow the blow-by-blow--and the blows got pretty fierce--Will Wilkinson has a pretty good summary over at The Economist.

I don't really want to play referee, either, but I'll try. I think a fair summary would be that some older and/or sicker people will find health insurance cheaper and easier to obtain, while some young people will find it a lot more expensive than they were expecting. People who supported Obamacare think that the former is important and the latter is relatively trivial, while people who opposed Obamacare believe the reverse. People who supported Obamacare are very angry at people who opposed it for emphasizing the rate shock, rather than pointing out all the benefits to other people, which would obviously present Obamacare in a much more favorable light. People who opposed Obamacare think since Obamacare was sold on the grounds that it would make insurance cheaper for everyone except rich people, the fact that a lot of non-rich people will apparently pay more deserves some individual focus. And since the supporters do not regularly caveat their articles extolling the benefits of Obamacare with a note about all the bad possible side effects, it's hard to argue that the opponents are obligated to do the opposite.

Who's right? At some level, this is a theological debate, not a technical analysis. I am going to argue that rate shock does matter, for a number of reasons. Then you can decide for yourself which aspect matters more.

The most basic reason that rate shock matters is that I don't think young single people were expecting it. It's true that during health care reform, the reformers acknowledged that some people would end up with a big health insurance bill they hadn't had before. But I wouldn't say that they exactly emphasized this aspect. The implication that I, for one, took away from their analyses was that the subsidies would substantially reduce the cost for even quite middle class people. Maybe a successful young IT contractor living in a nice condo would have to pay a few thousand dollars for the insurance he hadn't been buying, but I was under the impression that your average scraping-by clerical worker would pretty much have their bill covered, or reduced to some negligble sum.